Duration

Bullying and harassment is behaviour that makes someone feel intimidated or offended. Harassment is unlawful under the Equality Act 2010.

Examples of bullying or harassing behaviour include:

spreading malicious rumours

unfair treatment

picking on or regularly undermining someone

denying someone’s training or promotion opportunities

Bullying and harassment can happen:

face-to-face

by letter

by email

by phone

The law

Bullying itself is not against the law, but harassment is. This is when the unwanted behaviour is related to one of the following:

age

sex

disability

gender reassignment

marriage and civil partnership

pregnancy and maternity

race

religion or belief

sexual orientation

What employees should do if they’re bullied or harassed

Employees should see if they can sort out the problem informally first. If they cannot, they should talk to their:

manager

human resources (HR) department

trade union representative

If this does not work, they can make a formal complaint using their employer’s grievance procedure. If this does not work and they’re still being harassed, they can take legal action at an employment tribunal.

In everyday language, bullying, victimisation and harassment can be used almost interchangeably to mean similar things.

But in the Equality Act 2010, victimisation and harassment have quite specific meanings – while ‘bullying’ doesn’t feature as a legal term at all.

Harassment

Harassment may include bullying behaviour, and it refers to bad treatment that is related to a protected characteristic, such as age, sex, disability, race, gender, religion or sexual orientation.

More specifically, the law defines it as ‘unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic, which has the purpose or effect of violating an individual’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that individual.’

It can include behaviour that individuals find offensive even if it’s not directed at them, and even if they do not have the relevant protected characteristics themselves.

Victimisation

Victimisation broadly refers to bad treatment directed towards someone who has made or is believed to have made or supported a complaint under the Equality Act.

It includes situations where a complaint hasn’t yet been made but someone is victimised because it’s suspected they might make one.

If an individual gives false evidence or makes an allegation in bad faith, then they are not protected from victimisation under the Act.

Bullying

Bullying can be defined as offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting behaviour, an abuse of misuse of power that undermines, humiliates, denigrates or injures the recipient (emotionally or physically) – but it doesn’t have a legal definition in the Equality Act. In fact bullying behaviour is very similar to harassment, but it is not related to a protected characteristic.

That said, the absence of bullying from the statute books doesn’t mean that people who are being bullied – rather than harassed – have no protections. Neither does it mean that bullies can get away with doing whatever they like as long as their behaviour is not concerning a protected characteristic.

Employers have a ‘duty of care’ for their employees. No good firm would want its people working in an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment.

In any case, organisations that don’t act on bullying effectively are likely to see lower levels of performance, productivity and engagement, as well as increased absence and high staff turnover – all of which can damage the bottom line.

People who feel they are being bullied are usually advised to raise a formal grievance if the matter cannot be resolved informally.

Dealing with grievances internally can be costly in time and money, and sap morale among staff. A breakdown in mutual trust and confidence at work because of bullying could leave employers open to claims of constructive dismissal at an employment tribunal.

So it’s in every employer’s interests to promote a safe, healthy and fair environment in which people can work without fear of being bullied, harassed or victimised.

Equally it’s also in an employer’s interests to try and nip unwanted behaviour in the bud by dealing with matters quickly and informally, where they can, thereby protecting the working relationship.

ADVANTAGES

The most obvious advantage of accredited qualifications is that they provide the learners and stakeholders with a guarantee of quality of both the qualification programme and the awarding body that offers accredited qualifications. These qualifications are fit for their purpose, they include relevant content and appropriate methodology for assessment is used.

QUALIFICATIONS

Once proposed qualifications meet the requirements set out in the required document, they are listed in the Register of Regulated Qualifications where can also be found a list of recognised awarding organisations who have the power to award qualifications within the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF), the national credit transfer system in England, Wales and Ireland. Scotland has its own framework – the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework which is jointly regulated by several awarding and regulatory bodies.

REGULATORS

The regulators use several methods to ensure high quality of accredited qualifications before and after they are listed in the Register of Regulated Qualifications. In order to be recognised and have their qualifications accredited by the regulators, the awarding organisations have to submit their proposition to the regulator which then carefully reviews both the awarding organisation and the proposed qualification. If the qualification programme meets the regulator’s criteria, it is recognised and listed in the Register. If they do not meet the set criteria, they are rejected. In order to make sure that the accredited qualifications maintain appropriate standards and quality, they are kept under review by the regulators.
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